Schaeffer's Daily Market Blog Features: Abercrombie & Fitch, Office Depot, Staples, Halliburton, and the AMEX Oil Services HOLDRS Trust.CINCINNATI -- Among the stocks featured in the November 15 edition of Schaeffer's Market Blog are Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :ANF ANF antinuclear factor; see antinuclear antibodies (ANA), under antibody. ANF abbr. antinuclear factor ANF atrial natriuretic factor. ), Office Depot Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) is one of the world's leading suppliers of office products and services. The Company's selection of brand name office supplies includes business machines, computers, computer software and office furniture, while its business services encompass copying, (NYSE:ODP ODP - Open Distributed Processing ), Staples (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :SPLS), Halliburton (NYSE:HAL Hal: see Halle, Belgium. hal In Sufism, a state of mind reached from time to time by mystics during their journey toward God. The ahwal (plural of hal) are God-given graces that appear when a soul is purified of its attachments to the material world. ), and the AMEX AMEX See: American Stock Exchange Oil Services HOLDRS Trust (AMEX:OIH OIH Office of International Health OIH Ohio Industries for the Handicapped, Inc. ). Schaeffer's Market Blog is just one of the many free market commentaries written every day at www.SchaeffersResearch.com - the home of Bernie Schaeffer and Schaeffer's Investment Research. The Market Blog is written throughout every trading day In Business, the trading day is the time span that a particular stock exchange is open. For example, the New York Stock Exchange is, as of 2006, open from 09:30AM to 4:00PM. Trading days never take place on weekends. by Schaeffer's financial analysts and traders. They are quick insights to the day's most notable market activity from an options perspective. To have this report delivered to you free via email every day click on the following link and you'll also get an opportunity to win an iPod Nano. http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PROB PROB Probable/Probably PROB Problem PROB People's Republic of Bangladesh 13M&PAGE=1 . Don't forget that many of our observations are available as audio presentations that you can hear on your computer or download from Apple's iTunes Music Store to play on a portable device such as an iPod. To see the full menu of podcasts, please visit http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/commentary/podcasts/. 10:48 AM Abercrombie & Fitch Reports Following Tuesday's close, Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) reported a 43-percent increase in third-quarter earnings to $102 million, or $1.11 per share. Sales rallied 22 percent to $863.4 million, as same-store sales rose one percent. The mean estimate on Wall Street called for earnings of $1.08 per share on revenue of $854 million. Looking forward, ANF expects earnings between $3.25 and $3.30 per share (including a two-cent charge) in the second half of 2006. For the full year, the trendy apparel retailer expects to earn between $4.59 and $4.64 per share, including stock-option charges of about 10 cents per share Cents per share The amount of a mutual fund's dividend or capital gains distributions that a shareholder will receive for each share owned. . Analysts are expecting full-year results of $4.63 per share. Prudential reiterated its "overweight" rating on ANF this morning, but the stock dropped lower as it headed out of the gate. In mid-morning action, the shares are down four percent, testing the support of their rising 10-week moving average, which has helped guide the stock higher since early August. Some might say this is an attractive entry point for the stock, should it quickly recover from this technical support. 11:00 AM New Coverage for Office Retailers Soleil Securities opted to weigh in on two prominent office-supply retailers ahead of Wednesday's opening bell. The brokerage started both Office Depot (NYSE:ODP) and Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS) with a "hold" rating. Both equities are currently trading about one percent higher. SPLS is fresh from its third-quarter earnings announcement, which was issued yesterday morning. From a technical perspective, the equities look very similar. Both are testing the support of their 10-day moving averages and both have enjoyed long-term uptrends dating back to 2003. On the sentiment-analysis front, SPLS has a slight edge thanks to greater bearishness at work from the speculative crowd. The stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR SOIR Schaeffer's Put/Call Open Interest Ratio SOIR Simultaneous Operations on Intersecting Runways ) stands in the 65th percentile, while ODP's is closer to the bullish camp, in the 15th annual percentile. Currently, SPLS earns a Schaeffer's Equity Scorecard rating of 7.0 compared with ODP's grade of 6.0. 12:12 PM Save Money on Gasoline We have a new video series at our Audio and Video center at http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/commentary/podcasts/. It's called Fuel Report. Pooling all our resources, which include the latest crude oil prices, oil inventory reports, geopolitical ge·o·pol·i·tics n. (used with a sing. verb) 1. The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation. 2. a. news, and the overall state of the economy, we aim to answer one simple question: should we fill up the gas tank today, or wait? That "I just saved 10 cents a gallon" feeling always makes my day, and it adds up over the course of a year. 12:52 PM Halliburton Seeing Heavy Call Volume It appears that there is some heavy call option activity on oil service concern Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) today. Call volume on HAL is more than 10 times respective put volume with nearly 18,000 contracts traded at the January 2007 30 strike alone. The current Schaeffer put/call open interest ratio on HAL of 0.48 is below 96 percent of readings over the past year. After today's activity I wouldn't be surprised if the reading drops to the lowest it's been over the past 12 months. Perhaps the level of optimism towards this stock is becoming a bit overextended overextended, adj 1. the situation occurring when a prosthetic appliance is inadvertently constructed in such a way that part of the oral mucosa is injured by the appliance. adj 2. . 2:11 PM Energy is Having a Good Day Energy is having a good day today thanks to bullish numbers from the weekly inventory report. Right now oil is up 38 cents to $60.56 a barrel and the Oil Service HOLDRs Trust (AMEX:OIH) is up over two percent. Technically, the OIH could close at its highest level since early August. Looking at other energy names, the XLE XLE Xerox Linguistic Environment XLE Extra Limited Edition (XLE) is up less than a percent and the AMEX Natural Gas Index (XNG XNG AMEX Natural Gas Index XNG Xtreme Network Gaming XNG Quang Ngai Airport, Viet Nam ) is up just over a percent. My personal favorite energy play is Holly (HOC), which is up over two percent and nearing a new high. On a relative-strength basis, HOC is in a league of its own. For more information on these stocks or any stock in your portfolio, feel free to visit our Schaeffer's Equity Scorecard feature. Click here to read all of today's Market Blog: http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PROB13C&PAGE=1. Take advantage of the timely Schaeffer commentaries by signing up for their free e-newsletters -- Opening View, Market Recap and Monday Morning Outlook. Click here to have the Schaeffer's commentaries delivered to you free via email every day and get entered to win an IPod Nano. http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PROB13M&PAGE=1. About Schaeffer's Investment Research (www.SchaeffersResearch.com) Schaeffer's Investment Research, founded by Bernie Schaeffer in 1981, is a financial information and trading resources company. It publishes Bernie Schaeffer's Option Advisor, the nation's leading options subscription newsletter. The firm's contrarian approach focuses on stocks with technical and fundamental trends that run counter to investor expectations. The firm's website, http://www.SchaeffersResearch.com , is recognized as one of the leading information sources for stock and options traders and was cited as the top options website by both Forbes and Barron's. Click here for more details about Schaeffer's trading methodology: http://www.SchaeffersResearch.com/method . |
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